The last few days have seen some very important disagreements about the extent to which NHS hospitals need to be changed. Last week’s Guardian was full of the call for change from Bruce Keogh, the National Commissioning Board’s Medical Director. He took the fight to politicians by saying that by defending local interests MPs risked consigning their local hospital to “perpetual mediocrity”.
This is a sharper way of saying what others have been saying for some time. If politicians stand in the way by leading local campaigns against changes to hospitals they are consigning the NHS in general, and their local hospitals in particular, to falling behind. Medicine is a very rapidly changing service. Hospital services will need to be changed regularly to optimise them.
